Subject Guide: Reference

The Reference Subject Guide will help you find resources that are not specialized for certain areas of study. They are meant to be used for quick fact-finding, source help, and as good starting points for further research. There are many other resources available which provide specialized information--refined to one topic or area. To see more of these topical resources, see the Subject Guide Index page.

A Guide to Online Reference Webpages (by category):

Abbreviations & Acronyms
An acronym is formed from the first letter of each word in a phrase (i.e. " U.S.A. "). These websites decipher popular acronyms and other abbreviations.

Advertising Images
Find a wide variety of both historical and current print advertising images on the web.

Biographies
A collection of websites about famous women, political leaders, writers, and others.

Books in Print/Books Out of Print
Covers U.S. in-print & forthcoming books as well as more than 600,000 out-of-print books. Dates: 1979-present

Citation Guides
A list of websites to help navigate APA, MLA and Turabian citation styles.

CQ Researcher
Full text coverage of "a single 'hot' issue in the news in depth each week."

CQ Weekly
"Provides access to the full text of all Congressional Quarterly articles published since 1983... covers the most current and controversial issues of the day with complete summaries, insight into all sides of the issues, bibliographies and more."

Dictionaries and Thesauri
A large selection of well-known dictionary and thesauri resources on the web.

Employment Resources
Links to job ads, resume advice, salary information and employment trends in a wide variety of occupations.

Encyclopedias & Almanacs
General and subject specific resources, such as encyclopedias of history, mythology, etc.

Government Resources
Links to government resources in the U.S. and abroad.

Library Websites
Links to several of Ohio's public, academic and state library websites.

Maps
A list of links to political, physical and customizable maps for personal travel.

Mental Measurements Yearbook
Fulltext information and reviews for all English-language standardized tests covering educational skills, personality, vocational aptitude, psychology, and related areas.

Newspaper Databases
A list of  Newspaper databases (past & present) from the Online Resource Page, in one location.

News Sources
Links to local, national and international news and to news search engines.

Quotations
Find a quote from someone famous or infamous, using one of these quotation websites.

Search Engines
A list of search engines, including search engines, directories, metasearch engines and search engines by subject.

Travel, Time, and Weather
Links to local and international time, travel and weather websites.

Web Directories
Web directories help you find high-quality web sites on a variety of topics. Most directories are put together by librarians and information professionals.

Writing Guides
A list of handy web-based grammar guides that include how to avoid misusing everyday words in writing projects.

Yellow & White Pages
Websites to help you locate businesses, individuals, and zip codes.

E-Books

NetLibrary
A collection of electronic books which operates like a traditional library - one copy loaned to one user for a specific period of time. NetLibrary's collection covers a broad range of subjects.

Electronic Reference Books
OhioLINK provides a collection of special-topic reference books – " encyclopedias, handbooks, biographical collections, guides – searchable and browseable online.

Electronic Text Center
The University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center's holdings "include approximately 70,000 on- and off-line humanities texts in thirteen languages, with more than 350,000 related images (book illustrations, covers, manuscripts, newspaper pages, page images of Special Collections books, museum objects, etc.)"

Internet Public Library 'Books'
The Internet Public Library's collection of "over 20,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal Classification."

The Online Books Page
The University of Pennsylvania's website that "facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet." Searchable by author and title, browsable also by subject. Covers works in a broad spectrum of subjects, especially the pure and applied sciences, literature and history.

The National Academies Press
"NAP publishes over 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health." The Press's publications are full-text searchable and available for reading online.

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a collection of public domain literature and reference works in plain text format, searchable by author, title, and subject.

Safari Tech Books
A broad range of computer science and programming books--search by title, author, or browse by topic.